Zenkoji

Since we had a rail pass we decided to spend one day in Nagano at Zenkoji temple. We stayed at a guesthouse Fuchinobo on the grounds with wonderful vegetarian food and a nice bath. Since we arrived in the early evening we didn’t do much beyond walking the temple grounds a bit then head back for dinner. It was funny that near the main temple there was a vending machine, for religious charms! When we got back we had a carefully prepared 12 dish meal. It was fantastic.

At 5am we got up and were led up the steps to the temple where we viewed the morning prayers of the monks. Most people were sitting seiza, that is to say with their legs tucked under them. I had done this before when living in Japan and so gave it a go, but I got so stiff it was difficult to get up. After about 20 minutes of prayers we were led down a dark stair case to a completely black hall where we ran our hands along the wall. There in the darkness my hand followed the wall and then hit on something cold, hard, and obviously worn by many hands before mine. To be quite honest I had no idea what we were doing until we came back up. Then I realized that we had touched the Buddha. At the back of the temple is a statue of the Buddha which resides behind a curtain. During prayers the curtain is drawn and you can see the statue, but otherwise you cannot get near. So we had gotten near enough to touch by going into this dark chamber. It was pretty cool. Once we had come back up the monks invited us to sit with them and they made special prayers to people in our group. Aya had arranged a prayer for the health of Aya and Kevin Hurley and it was fun to hear the priest say our names and the monks to follow in prayer.

Once done at the temple we went back to the guesthouse and had a very well made breakfast and packed our bags. By 9am we were out on the road making our way to the train station to get to Hiroshima. On the train heading south a group of Japanese retirees boarded with hiking gear on. They were chattering away and every so often the group leader would announce something or other was coming up and everyone in the group would move to that side of the train car to see it. At one point the group moved to the side of the train and there in the not too far distance we could see the smoking top of Mt. Ontake where over 50 hikers had died in an eruption just days earlier. It was surreal. That evening we arrived in Hiroshima and headed to the atomic bomb dome, another surreal experience.